CHINA’S railway investment in the first 10 months of this year rose 37 percent from a year ago and is on track to meet a 2014 spending target of 800 billion yuan (US$130 billion), the country’s top economic planner said yesterday.

    China spent about 590 billion yuan between January and October to build new train lines, or 76 percent of total spending earmarked for railways this year, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said.

    The Chinese Government has stepped up the pace of spending in recent months, signing off on the construction of several big railway projects as the government moves to bolster a cooling economy.

    “We are also making preparations for a batch of new railway projects,” Fei Zhirong, head of the industry department at the commission, told a news briefing.

    China wants to start running 7,000 kilometers of new railway lines this year, although only about 32 percent of that had become operational as of October, Fei added.

    China’s economic growth slowed to 7.3 percent in the third quarter, raising concerns that expansion could fall below 7 percent — a rate not seen since the global financial crisis — in coming months.

    China, aiming to stabilize growth, surprised some investors by cutting interest rates last Friday for the first time in more than two years.(SD-Agencies)